


Choice and Consequence

by JokesterJay



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Other, TW: Connor's death mentioned, tw: death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 13:30:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7224298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JokesterJay/pseuds/JokesterJay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raksha tries to confront her emotions after killing Connor. Alistair confronts Raksha about killing Connor. Emotions during a time of death are difficult to express, and sometimes you need to turn away the one person you allow yourself to lean on.</p>
<p>Angst, from the point of view of my Warden.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Choice and Consequence

**Author's Note:**

> I pretty much just wrote this because I wanted to angst a bit from Raksha's POV, and build her up a bit as a character. This does have spoilers for Origins if you haven't gotten to Redcliffe yet.

She could remember very clearly every last choice she had made to get herself in this position. It was funny, she had thought that all her choices before being a Warden were meaningless. It wasn’t as if choosing between loaves of bread and new shoes were particularly defining choices, after all. It was only survival. All things considered, the only choice in Raksha’s life that had ever really amounted to something was the choice to allow her father to marry her off to a bloke from the neighbouring alienage. If it had been up to her, Raksha would have gladly spent her entire life working, trying to raise what was left of her family up and make their lives better.

Her father had always smiled and told her she had a good heart, and he was right. For all that she was stubborn, hotheaded, and prone to fighting, Raksha was a good woman. She used to feel so much certainty about that, until she had killed the arl’s son and most of his staff for kidnapping her and her friends in order to rape them. Since that moment she had made so many choices that took her in so many different directions, and she was no longer so sure she was a good woman. She had become a hard woman, out of necessity. 

Her only respite was Alistair, now that they had become lovers. She allowed herself to be soft with him, and sometimes she let the others see that softness. Leliana and Zevran were her closest friends, and she and Sten shared an admiration and respect of each other. But with Alistair, she could share. His past and experiences related to hers, and she was able to connect with him as if he were someone she had once dated in the alienage of Denerim.

And then came their mission in Redcliffe. She had left Alistair in camp, instead taking Zevran, Shale, and Wynne to storm the castle and save the arl’s family. Raksha had killed Connor, with her own hands and a dagger she had taken from her home in the alienage. Or at least, she planned to, until the demon forced her hand. She felt nothing after his death, and she stood quietly, blank faced during his funeral. Connor’s mother, in between crying and grieving, glared overtly at Raksha, cursing her, hating her. Raksha did not care. 

They left the village, and she clutched the necklace she had found in the study of the castle, numb to everything. Alistair, when he saw her, tried to speak to her. She stared past him for a moment, then walked away, calling the others to begin walking to their next mission. She supposed that Zevran or Wynne had shared the full tale of what had happened in Denerim, because the instant they could get alone, Alistair confronted her.

“We’re at camp. I want to talk about what happened at Redcliffe.” He looked angry, unbelievably angry. Angrier than she remembered seeing him. Ordinarily, Raksha would have glared back fiercely and gave his ears a thrashing with her sharp tongued remarks, but she felt so tired and numb. She blinked at him very slowly.

“What’s on your mind?” Her voice didn’t sound like her own. It sounded.. Small. 

“You killed him. You killed Connor, Raksha. You murdered a little boy.” She wondered vaguely why he should care for one life after all of the people she had killed, and all of the death they had both caused and witnessed. She wondered why she cared so much about Connor herself. She wondered if Connor’s spirit was at peace. She prayed it was.

“Why did you do it? Zevran told me everything. You could have saved him. You could have helped without ending his life.” 

“Alistair, I couldn’t sacrifice Isolde and use blood magic cast by a mage who poisoned the arl. I couldn’t trust him and I couldn’t sacrifice her for some profane ritual.” Raksha said, finally having some note of anger in her voice, even if it was self directed. 

“She caused all this mess by hiding Connor away! She deserved it!”

Could the answer truly have been so simple? Did Isolde deserve to be sacrificed like common cattle to save her son? She had wanted it, after all. She had been willing to do anything to save her son’s life after ruining so many lives. Raksha sighed and scuffed her feet, her armor weighing on her like a thousand sins.

“I didn’t enjoy it, Alistair.” She replied, guilt weighing heavily on her as she remembered Connor’s final moments as himself, asking questions about death. She made fists when the tears pricked her eyes. She would not cry in front of Alistair. She would not.

“Will it hurt?” he had asked, his shining eyes full of sadness. His cheeks were ruddy, pale in the light of the hall. She had knelt before him, showing him how sharp the dagger was. “No,” she had told him in a comforting voice, trying to imitate the way her mother had explained hard truths to her at a young age, “I will make it quick, Connor.”

“.. Alright, but you could have done something else. Anything else. What you did was wrong, even if he was possessed by a demon. He was just a boy, Raksha.” Alistair said, taking a step forward when he noticed her eyes flood.

“Maybe you’re right, I don’t know.” Raksha clenched her jaw, working hard to keep her tears at bay. She didn’t deserve comfort, she was a murderer. A child killer. She took short and quiet breaths, unwilling to display signs of weakness. A few silver strands came loose from her ponytail, hovering over her tattooed face. “I honestly did the best I could.”

Raksha’s logical mind knew it was the truth, and she had done exceptionally well given her choices. But so much had gone wrong, and she felt like the world’s biggest liar. The best she could do was to kill a little boy? What a joke. She looked up, squaring her shoulders, and met Alistair’s gaze. He seemed mollified, but still slightly upset and perhaps a little concerned now he saw the full effect that killing Connor had had on her. 

“Look, I’m the one being an ass, right? You did the best you could. I’m sorry.” He said, trying to bridge the gap between them. He reached out a hand, raising a brow.

Raksha stared for a long moment at his outstretched hand, then took it wordlessly. She backed off and gave him a long look. “I need to be alone right now. I will come to you if I need something.”

Alistair looked slightly hurt for a moment by the coldness of her tone, but he seemed to understand her message and backed off, leaving to go sit by the fire. Raksha withdrew to her tent and slept alone that night, for the first night in many long months.

Her father had always told her she was a good woman, capable of making equally good choices. Raksha felt that the woman she was now must be a completely different one from the good woman of the Denerim alienage. Where did she go, she wondered, and would she ever come back? She supposed only time would tell. 

Time, and an end to the Blight.


End file.
